WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 160: Morning in the Military State

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Five minutes was clearly a short amount of time, but even that brief moment followed economic logic. Five minutes was worth its weight in gold to someone pressed for time, while those with time to spare would not mind giving it away.

Right now, five minutes was worth its weight in gold to me.

Because I was asleep.

Brrr, click.

The alarm shut off before it could even ring. I didn't know which angel had done it, but I'd gained five precious minutes. The five minutes before opening my eyes in the morning couldn't be traded for anything.

"Please wake up... Third attempt. Further attempts have been deemed meaningless. Proceeding to the next phase."

Something tapped my shoulder, but such demure touches couldn't disturb my sweet sleep. I would defend these precious five minutes against this wicked invader.

Pulling up the blanket, I replied.

"Mmm, five more minutes."

"...Third attempt. Further attempts have been deemed meaningless. Proceeding to the next phase."

Huh. What came next again?

Wait. Could it be?

"Beeeeeeeeeeep!"

"Aaaaagh!"

A cry louder than most alarm clocks went off beside my ear. I rolled out of my soft bed, flung the blanket far away, and leaped to my feet.

"Again? We're doing this again? Yesterday, you didn't wake up no matter how much I beeped at you!"

It was unfair. Why was I the only one who had to suffer this? I wanted to wake her up like this too, so why wouldn't she wake up?

Unable to contain my resentment, I shouted.

"I told you to wake me by tapping my shoulder! What is all this chaos first thing in the morning?"

Already dressed in her uniform, the captain answered calmly.

"I already attempted that."

"Attempted what? There's no way I wouldn't wake up!"

"This officer does not submit false reports. Also, why are you so confident when you woke up ten minutes after your scheduled wake-up time? This is negligence."

"Ten minutes?! I woke up ten minutes late?"

"Affirmative. Oversleeping by ten minutes is undeniably an act of negligence. Therefore..."

"Ah, what? It hasn't been that long. Wake me up a little later. Yawn..."

As I tried to lie back down, the captain grabbed my hand and pulled me up herself.

"Wake up! Has negligence seeped into your bones? How can you suggest sleeping more at this point?"

"Ah, I'm tired. I met a friend last night, so I barely got any sleep."

"You even snuck out in the middle of the night? I cannot find any will to follow the rules in your words or actions!"

"What are you talking about? You fell asleep before it was even time for bed yesterday."

"D-denial! No, not denial, denial of intent! This officer had no intention of doing so! It was unavoidable!"

Even with her face bright red, the captain wouldn't let me sleep.

This was why living with someone was inconvenient. A home was best when used alone.

"I will not fall asleep like that today. This officer has recovered from her travel fatigue and gotten sufficient sleep. I will not make the same disgraceful display as yesterday!"

"Ah, is that so."

"Affirmative! What happened yesterday was an unexpected strike! Today is differ..."

Still shouting, the captain tilted her head with a puzzled expression.

"...? Question. Yesterday, this officer fell asleep in the bathroom. How did..."

"All right. Shall we go eat breakfast? Sorry, but breakfast is Anna's bean dish again today!"

I sprang up and burst through the door. The captain innocently set her question aside and hurried after me.

"Question. Why are you sorry? Her bean dish was sufficiently... no, exceedingly delicious."

"Can you eat stir-fried beans again?"

"Affirmative. I could eat them all day."

Wow. She was less picky about food than a dog.

The captain stuffed another mouthful of Anna's stir-fried beans into her mouth and savored them with shining eyes.

"......!"

'Delicious...! It tastes different from yesterday! It clearly looks the same, but...!'

"Is it good? I put in a little extra effort today. Eat plenty."

Anna smiled warmly. The captain kept nodding as she spooned the mixed stir-fry into her mouth.

'If I ask for this recipe...! No, impossible. A recipe of this caliber must be classified information! This officer will not be able to obtain it...!'

There was nothing to copy. All she needed to remember was high heat and enough oil.

No, wait. Something else had been mixed in. That lingering fragrance that covered the canned smell, could it be...?

Wow. She used that?

"Anna. How could you sprinkle that in here?!"

I scolded her, but Anna answered calmly.

"I only used a little. Just enough to fit between my thumb and forefinger. I didn't even use as much as the ten percent commission I'm to receive, so don't worry."

"You sure use it freely as if it were yours."

"Is what goes into that child's mouth such a waste?"

"I wasn't planning to feed her gold dust."

When I grumbled, Anna chuckled and picked up the bag beside her. Then she set a bowl of soup before the captain and spoke gently.

"I'll stop by another district for a little while today. The small restaurant will be closed, so eat lunch somewhere else."

"...?! Emergency! Is the closure true?"

"Hehe. Hughes will guide you somewhere better, so don't worry. He knows plenty of people, so he must know plenty of delicious places."

"Denial..."

'There cannot be canned bean dishes more delicious than this!'

Why did she limit it to beans? Couldn't she think of any other food?

Anna's smile as she watched the dejected captain was that of a mother looking at her daughter. Smiling with maternal affection, Anna said,

"If you can, wait until dinner. I may be back by then. Hughes, take good care of her. I'll go do what you asked me to do."

She meant she would sell the spices I'd left with her. I grumbled.

"What care? She's someone who gets along perfectly well on her own."

"That is why I'm telling you to be there for her. Alone, she can only be strong, but with someone else, she can afford to act spoiled for a little while. I think you both need that."

"Why do you keep treating us like children left by the water's edge? Instead of worrying about her, you should worry about me first."

The captain didn't know how the back alleys worked, but once she put on that uniform and went to base, plenty of people would salute her first.

They might look down on her if they learned she was a communications officer, but when she was in the flesh, she hid her identity. They would just think she was a captain.

"...When I return, I'll make something even better with all kinds of ingredients, so don't feed her anything too delicious."

Anna left the small restaurant with that smile.

She was headed for the market in District 13. There, she would turn the gold dust she'd been sprinkling into real gold. She would probably buy vegetables while she was there, and if money remained, perhaps even fresh meat, a level 1 luxury good that could only be bought by paying extra.

Hm. I was looking forward to it. Maybe we should just take a simple tour today.

"Bbi. Are you done eating?"

The captain, who had emptied her bowl, nodded.

"Affirmative. Her skill is exceptional. It is comparable to the finest meal this officer has ever eaten."

They said familiar flavors were the most frightening, but calling a canned-bean mixed stir-fry the finest meal she'd ever eaten left me questioning military-state soldier welfare.

I was looking forward to seeing her reaction when Anna returned and cooked something with ample funds and top-quality spices.

"Question. Who is Anna? Even among mess cooks, there are none who can make food like this. Was she once a legendary mess cook?"

"What legend is there among mess cooks? She's just an ordinary level 0 citizen."

"...Level 0? Her?"

The captain's eyes widened in surprise. I didn't miss the opening and went for the throat.

"You just thought it, didn't you? 'A mere level 0 gets to eat food this delicious! It's unfair!'"

"Deni..."

The captain swallowed her denial and honestly nodded.

"Denial... of denial. Perhaps so. This officer believed that all low-level citizens lived difficult and miserable lives."

Low-level citizens did live difficult and miserable lives, but you were the strange one. Compared to you, even most low-level citizens would be aristocrats.

...No. The captain would still have her pay steadily deposited at the Veterans Affairs Office. I didn't know how that money would disappear, but she would be better off than a level 0 citizen.

"Still, the lives of level 0 citizens, who are treated as half-abandoned by the administration, are not so bad. The military authorities should be proud of this..."

'It must mean that this officer's loyalty to the military state was not meaningless.'

Huh. Her way of thinking was strange.

Usually, seeing people live like this, I would expect her to think:

"A level 0 gets to enjoy this much luxury and freedom, so why is this officer, no, why am I living like this when I'm level 3? Dissatisfaction! Rebellion! Strike! Revolution! I will cease all duties from today onward!"

That was what I expected. Yet she felt proud that being loyal to the military state had been the right thing to do?

She was beyond what I expected. Was she pure, or simply resolute? At this point, it was impressive that the military state had created communications officers.

"I can't agree. Is that really true? People have no problems when they are simply living together. The trouble for those without any room to spare comes when hardship strikes them."

As work time approached, alarm clocks rang out throughout the residential district. Unlike last night, no one complained about the noise.

If they failed to wake up and arrived late, they might have their labor term extended.

For ordinary citizens, alarm clocks were objects of both love and hate. They painfully drove away the sweetness of morning sleep, yet they were also signals that protected their precious daily lives.

Most citizens forced out of bed walked the streets like corpses, clutching their empty stomachs without even eating breakfast. They mostly moved in the same direction, and their lines became one enormous current.

A few young people stood in the hallway and pounded hard on a door.

"Hey! Philip! Wake up!"

"You're not dead, are you? Damn it, they looked exhausted. We should've sent them home early yesterday."

While they regretted it, a sharp alarm still rang noisily behind the tightly shut door.

The captain asked.

"Why are they knocking on another person's home?"

"They agreed to wake one another in case someone heard their alarm and still couldn't wake up. If they're late, that day's labor could be invalidated."

Human cooperation, working to survive in this urban jungle. An alliance born of necessity.

But the captain, so disciplined that she woke before her alarm even rang, couldn't sympathize with it.

"Question. Why would someone need another person's help to wake up? They need only sleep on time and wake up on time."

"Don't think everyone is like you. Some people fall asleep late because of unavoidable circumstances, like I did last night."

"That happened because you are delinquent!"

The captain seemed rather curious, so I decided to follow the flow with her for a while. The people trudging down the main road split into several groups.

Some packed themselves like cargo onto large automated carriages that rattled up.

Some lined up before huge buildings in the central district.

Others entered factories that resembled massive warehouses, as if being swallowed whole.

"Some go to factories, some to logistics warehouses, some to stations, some to the engineering corps or supply corps... They go perform the day's labor."

The military state's lower class, with no land even to farm, had nothing but their bodies. Naturally, all they could do was work that used those bodies.

Most of the money ordinary people earned came from labor sites, and they lived day to day off their labor. Naturally, all wages came from the military state, and the military state took the products made at those worksites.

It would not be wrong to say that every place employing laborers was under military-state control.

"This officer knows that much."

"But you barely know the types or intensity of the labor, right? Or which kinds of work are preferred."

"...Affirmative."

"Hehe. A captain who doesn't even know that."

The captain tightly shut her mouth, wounded in her pride. Before she could sulk further, I made a suggestion.

"Since we're talking about it, shall we go experience some labor today?"

"Was that the type of work one could experience?"

"What in this world can't be done? If you talk things through well enough, a path will open."

"...Warning. That statement of yours contains a very great danger. There are matters prohibited by law in the military state. If one violates them, one receives severe punishment according to the prohibition level."

Even as she said that, the captain joined the line after me, apparently wanting to see inside the factory.

It might be a little much for a homebody like the captain, but it would be good for her to learn how hard labor was. It might even be a greater stimulus.

That was when a shout rang out from the middle of the crowd.

"You little thief!"

Smack. A fierce kick struck a small boy. The boy rolled across the ground, waving his hands.

"I-I didn't do it!"

It was the pickpocket boy who had laid hands on me yesterday.

Perhaps he had not yet reached the level of a true pickpocket, because he stood face-to-face with a man who was panting with anger.

"I saw you trying to pickpocket me! What are you trying to hide?!"

Every passerby gave them a glance.

But that was all.

The citizens walking by looked the boy and the man over, then continued on their way. Their attitude was indifference.

"Help me! That man is... Agh!"

Whether someone had been robbed or someone had been beaten while stealing, it was none of their concern.

In truth, not one person had directly intervened or helped when they saw the child I caught yesterday. They had only watched with hostility because a military-state captain stood beside me.

There were few people in this district with enough room to step directly into someone else's affairs.

"...Pickpocketing is a crime. Though the offense is not especially grave, committing the same crime so casually after doing so yesterday is clearly a serious problem."

And the captain should not have had that kind of room either.

Yet the girl who identified with others as strangely as she did was about to step forward for the child crying out in pain.

"However, private punishment is not permitted. He has no right to judge a criminal as he pleases."

She was the kind of person who would have broken first if left to the military state as she was. Even without room to spare, she gave of herself to create it for others.

Did the military state protect communications officers, or exploit them?

"...Do not stop me."

"No. I should stop you. The child wouldn't want you to intervene either."

I adjusted my pace leisurely within the stream of people. The man, nearly late for work, gave the child one final kick and vanished into the crowd.

The boy lay there as if dead, then opened his eyes a crack to watch the man's back before suddenly getting up. A strange smile hung on his lips even as a groan escaped them.

"...Hehe, even if I get caught during the morning commute... they usually don't drag me to the orphanage... So it's manageable..."

He had gained nothing, but he had lost nothing either.

Taking that as good fortune, the boy vanished back into the street.

By pure coincidence, the captain passed right beside the boy at that moment. Hearing him, she pressed her lips together.

"..."

'They do not want it. They did not want the military state's judgment. Had this officer intervened, both would have faced an outcome they did not desire.'

From a soldier's perspective, they were both negligent in their duties. The criminal boy should have gone to the orphanage, while the man had neglected his duty to report the crime instead of punishing him privately.

Yet the captain sincerely felt relieved that she had not intervened just now.

Pretending to comfort the troubled captain, I said quietly,

"Ha ha. Don't feel hurt. This is everyday life here."

There was no answer.

Footnotes:

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